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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Regimand's circumstances re:conspiracy blackmail may have meant that Mathilde's situation was rather unusual when she started her journeying, aside from the whole getting drafted into the conspiracy.
 
I don't think most people would suspect that an assassin's price for murdering a head of state would have been "Let me make you rich".

[X] [Blood] Empire (Canal linking the Urskoy and Lynsk)
[X] [ULTHUAN] Cooperation
 
Andres said:
I distinctly remember late 20s, partly because Realms of Sorcery page 77 says that there's never been a journeyman younger than late 20s/early 30s and Divided Loyalties is based on WFRP 2e.
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That line has been disregarded from quest canon, largely I expect so that Mathilde could plausibly be as 'low-level' as she was for the start of the quest.

It does have some knock-on effects. The Bright College's "You will go on a Journey even if it kills you; we have no place for malingerers" is a lot harsher when they're booting apprentices out of the door at 20 than at 30+.
 
infinityDivided said:
I don't think most people would suspect that an assassin's price for murdering a head of state would have been "Let me make you rich".
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It isn't. Boris would do whatever's best for Kislev, and if that means immediately getting started on a canal, that's what he would do. That he wouldn't immediately start on a canal without the boon means that there are better things he could be doing for Kislev. Instead, he's doing this suboptimal thing for the benefit of the Empire's conflict with Marienburg and possibly to enrich the pockets of the assassin's trading company.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
There's an argument to be made that Eike got her basic intrigue training during her junior apprenticeship, and now we're training her in all the non-standard skills a grey wizard may need.

I still think we should do intrigue training, but I don't think we should worry about not having done any so far.
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mathymancer said:
Obviously Eike got basic training as a junior apprentice, but are we seriously going to settle for the basic training she got? Mathilde 27 intrigue Weber isn't going to teach her apprentice to be sneaky? What is the world coming to?
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Adding to this, we know that Regimand regularly gave Mathilde practice in these skills during her Apprenticeship:
Boney said:
You did this a hundred times in your teenage years. Your Master picked a random citizen, and you tailed them for a week or two, learning as much as you could about them and then coming up with plans to kidnap, kill, or suborn them.
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I wouldn't mind giving Eike an assignment like this for the Eike Study action -- it clearly worked out for Mathilde -- but a recurring turn vote battlefield is the balance between how study-focused Eike Study actions are vs. being a practical task to accomplish independently.
 
Boney said:
Apprenticeship
Most would-be Wizards have their magical awakening at 15-20, and it's rare for it to happen outside 10-25. The first third of their approximately ten to twelve year Apprenticeship is the Junior Apprenticeship, spent developing control over the ability to touch the Winds. For some people this means learning how to reach out and touch it, for others it's learning how to stop. They cannot leave the mono-Wind environment of the Colleges without risking Dhar poisoning. They usually get a Master in the middle third of their Apprenticeship when they reach regular Apprentice, which is when they start learning how to actually do things with magic instead of learning how not to be killed by magic. Most spend this inside the College, though it can be spent at any College-controlled location, and they still rely on mono-Wind environments for practice and learning. In the final third of their Apprenticeship, Senior Apprentices have enough control and ability that they can be allowed to leave College property of their own accord. Practically every Senior Apprentice will have a Master, as it's the level when they can pull their weight and properly assist their Master. Some of them join their Master on their missions or get sent on simple assignments, some of them go adventuring on their own, most just use it to explore Altdorf.
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Mathilde was found at 11 and went Journeying at 20 (one of the youngest Journeywomen, if not the youngest). Eike was found at 11, breezed through her junior Apprenticeship in three years (it takes three to five years according to Mathilde), and is likely on track to go Journeying at 20-21 unless Mathilde decides to hold her back for some reason.
 
picklepikkl said:
I wouldn't mind giving Eike an assignment like this for the Eike Study action -- it clearly worked out for Mathilde -- but a recurring turn vote battlefield is the balance between how study-focused Eike Study actions are vs. being a practical task to accomplish independently.
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Depending on what new EIC actions are available next turn, I'd like to assign her and the Hochlander to set up spies somewhere.

Or maybe we could have her try to find any evidence of wrongdoing in the EIC? Though that might be more Stewardship than Intrigue.

I'd love to take her along on missions Mathilde is doing herself, but it's hard to think of something level-appropriate for her unless we are just devoting a full AP to teaching her Intrigue.
 
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Somic said:
Mathilde was found at 11 and went Journeying at 20 (one of the youngest Journeywomen, if not the youngest). Eike was found at 11, breezed through her junior Apprenticeship in three years (it takes three to five years according to Mathilde), and is likely on track to go Journeying at 20-21 unless Mathilde decides to hold her back for some reason.
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Mathilde was found at ten, not eleven, which is at the very young end of the spectrum (per the WoB post you cited). We had a ten-year-long Apprenticeship, which is on the low side of normal (recall that we were the first of our peer cohort to graduate to Journeying). Eike was eleven in 2486.5, so she is currently fifteen. Assuming a ten-year Apprenticeship, we should plan on her graduating in 2496.5, in six more years (twelve turns). Probably in another year or two she will have her status upgraded to Senior Apprentice.
Andres said:
It isn't. Boris would do whatever's best for Kislev, and if that means immediately getting started on a canal, that's what he would do. That he wouldn't immediately start on a canal without the boon means that there are better things he could be doing for Kislev. Instead, he's doing this suboptimal thing for the benefit of the Empire's conflict with Marienburg and possibly to enrich the pockets of the assassin's trading company.
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This is only true if you assume that Boris is capable of perfect discernment of what is best for Kislev. Humans are frequently muddled in their thinking and do suboptimal things even by the standards of their sincerely-held values, or lack necessary information because they do not have perfect understanding of all the relevant factors. Furthermore, "what is best for Kislev" changes as you change your optimization horizon: optimizing over a two-year horizon and a twenty-year horizon will lead to very different actions. My strong guess is that what Boris would do, left alone, is focus on pure military buildup, which is an extremely reasonable choice for him to make. If he diverts some resources to instead tackle a canal project, then Kislev is weaker in the short term but much stronger once the canal's benefits have had time to be felt. Which one of these is "better" for Kislev depends a lot on your assumptions.
 
The big problem with gathering support for spending a full AP on teaching Eike is that she's doing...fine? Like, I'd hope that the thread would divert some resources towards her if she was struggling, but she very clearly isn't. Whatever task we put her on, she pulls her weight. And her numbers continue to go up, for those who value stats over narrative. There's a very strong impression that what we've been doing with tag-alongs and guided study has been working.

I'm very much for shifting the Eike actions to a more independent footing now that she's shadowed us on several, though. Not as some kind of backdoor method of "free AP", but because I think it's the obvious next step in her journey (lower-case J).
 
Somic said:
Mathilde was found at 11 and went Journeying at 20 (one of the youngest Journeywomen, if not the youngest). Eike was found at 11, breezed through her junior Apprenticeship in three years (it takes three to five years according to Mathilde), and is likely on track to go Journeying at 20-21 unless Mathilde decides to hold her back for some reason.
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Mathilde: You will be able to take the magister exams when I'm done with you.
 
Btw, I didn't see anyone mention this yet but I really appreciate the amount of time you give for the moratorium on consequential votes like this @Boney, especially since it's the end of the year and people might have less time to follow/contribute to the thread. Really helps give the leeway and time to spitball and throw ideas at the wall, it took almost a day until the Kislev canal idea was brought up to be considered and before that it seemed like asking for Books was the only mainstream idea.
 
Andres said:
It isn't. Boris would do whatever's best for Kislev, and if that means immediately getting started on a canal, that's what he would do. That he wouldn't immediately start on a canal without the boon means that there are better things he could be doing for Kislev. Instead, he's doing this suboptimal thing for the benefit of the Empire's conflict with Marienburg and possibly to enrich the pockets of the assassin's trading company.
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It isn't what Boris believes is optimal, he could also be wrong.
 
I figure that Boris currently has three main goals:
-Prepare for the Chaos incursion
-Support the Ice Mages/Witches/Clerics
-Support the Waystone project

Building a canal will probably take away manpower and resources from other priorities that we care about. But that's true of every boon that we've requested, other than ones that were purely status increases or licenses (e.g. cactus fief).

We view Boris building the canal primarily as a way to strengthen the empire and weaken Marienburg, and in a way that benefits Kislev too in the longrun. It may not be the best use of Kislev's manpower and resources from a Kislevite perspective (either in the long or shortrun), but that's why we're using it as a boon instead of them doing it on their own. It would be a pretty poor use of a boon if it was something that they could be convinced to do to help themselves, after all.
 
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With help from the empire and Karak Ankor it can be done pretty fast. Kislev has man power but lack funds and expertise. Also all 3 working together would be a good thing for everyone and build ties that can be expanded on.
 
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